Politics
2023: Resign, Pursue Your Ambition, APC Chieftain Tells Buhari’s Ministers
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna State, Yusuf Ali, has said that the continuous stay in office of President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministers seeking to contest for various elective positions is unethical and immoral.
Ali, who made the remarks while speaking with newsmen in Kaduna, said the honourable thing for them to do is to resign and pursue their political ambitions.
“I am aware that some of Buhari’s ministers have ambitions to contest for one office or the other. In fact, some have even openly declared their interest to contest for elective positions yet they are pretending to be unaware of the moral burden on them to resign and prosecute their campaigns.
“Hiding behind the court judgement on the provision in the electoral act for them to resign before the party convention is neither here nor there because there was a precedent even in the Jonathan administration when seven ministers tendered their resignation months to the PDP’s primaries to contest for various offices,” he said.
The APC chieftain said the concerned ministers don’t need any presidential directive or court judgement to resign, stressing that they should be conscious enough to know that their continuous stay in office is a liability to the party and the government.
“At the moment some of them are distracted already and government functions that have to do with the security and welfare of citizens are suffering. Take the issue of the Transport Minister, who has literally turned himself into the Minister of Railways, we need someone who can concentrate on supervising the operations and construction of the rail-lines without any distraction at least up to the end of the Buhari administration.
“In another clime, he could have even resigned without prompting because of his failure to ensure security of the rail-lines, which caused calamity to many families as I am talking now.
“While Nigerian students are languishing at home because of the protracted strike by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the man in charge of negotiating to ensure that the strike is called off is busy consulting across the country to run for office.
“This is immoral and we should not continue to run our country like this. There has to be the irreducible minimum we should not cross,” he said.
Ali however, commended state governments for getting it right by directing those with political ambition to resign, saying the reverse is the case at the federal level.
He said it will be difficult to convince Nigerians that those Ministers are not using public funds to pursue their political ambitions.
“With N100 million pegged for presidential nomination form, what’s the salary of a Minister of the Republic? While they remain in office, how are we sure that they are not going to use the public funds at their disposal to buy the presidential nomination form and pursue and their electoral ambition,” he said.
He said the main reason why public officials are encouraged to relinquish their offices before contesting elections is to ensure that they do not take undue advantage of their offices to pursue personal ambitions to the detriment of public interest.
He called on President Buhari to do the needful by directing the Secretary to the Government of the Federation to issue a circular directing all public officials at the Federal Level to relinquish their offices in order to pursue their political ambitions.
Prof. Amupitan gave the warning on Saturday, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, during the South-South Zonal Readiness Assessment and Interactive Staff Engagement organised ahead of the 2027 general elections.
He said insecurity remained a potential challenge to the electoral process but stressed that the Commission would not allow threats against its personnel to undermine its constitutional responsibilities.
“Insecurity may pose a challenge, but our collective constitutional resolve is far stronger. Let me again send a clear message from Port Harcourt: anyone who attempts to threaten, intimidate, or harm our ad-hoc staff, NYSC members, or permanent personnel will be brought to justice under the full weight of the law,” he said.
The INEC Chairman, who was accompanied by National Commissioners, directors and technical aides, disclosed that the South-South engagement was the fifth in a series of zonal assessments, following similar exercises in the South-West, North-West, South-East and North-East.
He explained that his physical presence across the geopolitical zones reflected the Commission’s field-first approach, emphasising that electoral integrity must be established through effective operations at the grassroots.
According to him, the assessment would cover operational preparedness across the 123 Local Government Areas in the six South-South states.
On election security, Prof. Amupitan said INEC had moved away from reactive security arrangements traditionally activated around election day to a proactive, intelligence-driven framework known as the “ICCES Tentacle”.
He explained that the framework was designed to extend inter-agency security coordination from national and state headquarters to local government areas and Registration Area Centres, including remote communities.
He identified three critical pillars of the framework as mapping and mitigating security threats, protecting electoral personnel and infrastructure, and guaranteeing safe access to polling units.
The INEC boss said the security arrangement would provide comprehensive protection for electoral personnel, technological infrastructure, including Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) devices and server infrastructure, as well as voters.
He added that the framework was intended to ensure that every polling unit, irrespective of its geographical location or history of security challenges, remained safe and accessible for the exercise of democratic rights.
Prof. Amupitan disclosed that the South-South security architecture comprised approximately 60 major operational formations, headquarters and state commands operating under the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES).
The network, he said, brings together military, naval, air, police and other security and intelligence agencies across the six states.
“Together, this integrated multi-agency network represents the operational backbone that guarantees intelligence-led protection across every riverine creek, coastal axis, and land-based polling unit in the Niger Delta,” he stated.
Providing an overview of the region’s electoral significance, the INEC Chairman said the South-South had the fourth-largest voting bloc in the country, with 15,823,550 registered voters, representing 15.30 per cent of the national register.
Rivers State alone, he said, accounts for 3,736,434 registered voters spread across the 23 local government areas.
Alhaji Abubakar made the demand following revelations that some INEC registration officers allegedly abused their access to the voter registration system to introduce irregular records into the database.
In a statement issued by his Director of Strategic Communications, Mr Phrank Shaibu, the former vice-president described the development as a serious breach of the Commission’s internal safeguards and raised concerns about the integrity of the electoral process.
He urged INEC to identify the officials implicated in the alleged misconduct and explain what disciplinary or legal measures had been taken against them.
Alhaji Abubakar also called for an independent forensic audit of the preliminary voters’ register to establish the scale of the alleged manipulation, identify affected records and determine how the questionable entries were introduced into the system.
He further insisted that INEC preserve all relevant voter records, image files, system access logs and electronic audit trails to prevent the destruction or alteration of evidence before an independent examination could be conducted.
The former vice-president also demanded that the Commission disclose the identities of companies contracted to produce sensitive election materials ahead of the 2027 polls, arguing that transparency was essential to building public confidence in the electoral process.
INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Dr Lawrence Bayode, had earlier disclosed during a television interview that some registration officers across the country allegedly used their official login credentials to introduce irregularities into the voters’ database.
Dr Bayode explained that the Commission’s Automated Biometric Identification System helped identify questionable records and establish how some irregularities entered the system.
He, however, clarified that not all suspicious photographs were AI-generated, as some resulted from poor registration procedures.
The development followed public concerns over suspected AI-generated photographs, alleged duplicate entries and other inconsistencies discovered in the preliminary voters’ register published online on October 26, 2026.
INEC has maintained that the published document is a preliminary register and that it is reviewing questionable records ahead of the certification of the final Register of Voters.
The controversy has intensified calls for greater transparency and accountability in the management of the voters’ register as preparations gather momentum for the 2027 general elections.
-
Opinion3 days ago
Ancestorial Worship: My Take (1)
-
News9 hours ago
Customs Partners EFCC, NDLEA, Others To Tackle Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing
-
News9 hours agoFresh Ebola Scare As NCDC Records Two Cases
-
News3 days agoFG Must Address Nigerians’ Concerns On Reforms -Shettima …Warns Against Misuse of AI, Social Media
-
Niger Delta8 hours ago
PANDEF Seeks 50% Oil Derivation Allocation Increase
-
Rivers6 hours ago
Don Seeks Repositioning Of Tech Education For Dev
-
Education7 hours agoPAMO MEDICAL UNIVERSITY -Nullifies Arrest warrant on VC
-
Education7 hours agoIAUE MOVES TO END GHOST WORKERS SYNDROME AS 400 NEW NON-TEACHING STAFF UNDERGO MANDATORY ETHICS TRAINING